Woke up this morning feeling like P. Did- No. I didn’t. I woke up this morning pretty tired considering how late I had stayed up without really realizing it. I didn’t have to wake up when I did since the calculus review this morning at 9 was only optional. By the time Andrew and I woke up, I had only gotten about three and a half hours of sleep (in addition to the two-and-a-half hour nap I had gotten earlier). We went to the Student Union Building (SUB), got Blue Books to give to our calculus teacher for the exam, grabbed some Starbucks at Barnes and Noble (Venti Cappuccino Vanilla Latte; yummy), and made our way to the math building. I was actually pretty okay with post of the stuff we learned this semester, so I didn’t have many questions and just followed along with what she did on the board as she went. It helped a bit, I suppose.

 

When the review session was over at 10, Andrew and I threw away our empty coffee cups and made our way back to the room. I had originally planned on sleeping another couple of hours at this point before I had my jury rehearsal with my accompanist at 2, but the coffee destroyed that plan. Instead, we just sat in the room for a while, watched a few episodes of Family Guy, and then, around 12:30 or so, we decided to walk to the Subway on University Dr. and use our gift cards (thanks, Granna!) to buy dinner. I got my usual; a foot-long Subway melt (ham, turkey, white American cheese, and bacon) on Italian Herbs and Cheese bread, with lots of black olives and Parmesan cheese (the candy of cheeses) on it as well. Good stuff. With a large pink lemonade and a bag of kettle-cooked jalapeño potato chips, it made a great meal.

 

We finished relatively quickly and made it back on campus around 1:20, where we split paths at the music building (where I was to have my accompanist rehearsal); he went back to the room. I went inside and warmed up a bit while I waited on the accompanist to show up, and, once she did, we played through all of the Strauss horn concerto I was planning on playing for my jury. I timed it from start to finish, and, unfortunately, 16 minutes and 57 seconds is far too long for a jury, so we’ll have to skip around a bit. Oh well. Hopefully, whatever I play from it will sound alright. Who knows, maybe it’ll sound better since I won’t be playing the whole thing start to finish! Gotta consider the possibilities.

 

After accompanist rehearsal,  I re-joined Andrew back in the room, where he was working on Chemistry homework and I just sat on my computer for a while (which is still functioning marvelously, I might add). Around 4:15, I decided that it was due time for a nap, so I shut down my computer, ate a Lofthouse cookie, put on my favorite radio station from home (TuneIn Radio app for iPhone, if you’re interested), and went to sleep…and didn’t officially wake up until 9:15. WHAT THE HECK. When I woke up, Andrew was gone and I only had my Christmas music to keep me company (I think it was around this point that Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” started playing). I texted Andrew the following: “HOW COULD YOU HAVE LET ME SLEEP SO LONG” (word-for-w0rd, caps lock and everything). I laid in bed for a while, messing around with Twitter and Facebook on my phone, and then, around 11:15-11:30 or so, I decided to walk to the parking garage, get in my car, and drive to McDonald’s down the street for a late dinner (since I had slept through the time when normal people eat dinner). I got my usual there as well: two McDoubles, plain and dry with a large fry, and I decided to get a Hot Caramel Mocha, with whole milk, to drink. Lemme tell you, that is some good coffee. I really enjoyed it (am I turning into a coffee addict?!).

 

Speaking of drink obsessions, I am proud to announce that I have officially been completely soda-free for nearly four months now, since mid-August. I didn’t think I could do it, but I’ve pulled it off so far. I think I’m gonna try to shoot for at least a year and see where I stand at that point. You see, there are a couple of reasons why I gave up soda. The first reason had to do with the fact that I was becoming over-dependent on it. When I woke up in the morning and was tired, I’d grab a soda. Headache? Grab a soda. Feeling sick? Grab a soda. Eating? Grab a soda. Woke up in the middle of the night? Walk to the kitchen and get a swig of soda from one of the 2-liter bottles. At Poppa and Granna’s house? Grab five sodas. You get the picture. I was too reliant on the effects of the sugar and the caffeine, or maybe even the carbonation. Who knows? My other reason was inspired by Logan Mitchell, a good friend who I mainly keep in contact with through Twitter, who gave up soda more than two years ago, losing him a lot of weight and making him look super great. Now, I’m not saying that I’m fat or that I’m super chubby or anything, but I could definitely stand to lose some weight, and, since eating habits are more difficult to change since I’m a generally picky eater and I really enjoy my food, soda seemed to be a good first step on the path to being skinnier. So far, I haven’t noticed much difference, but I don’t think I’ve gained much either, which is a plus. Maybe the change is more long-term than just four months. I’ll find out, won’t I?

 

Anyway, by the  time I got back to the room with the burgers and coffee (I had eaten the fries during the drive back, like you’re supposed to with fast food French fries), Andrew was back from doing whatever he had been doing with Chi Ro (I believe they were studying together). After eating and watching a few YouTube videos, Andrew went to bed and was asleep less than five minutes from the time he stopped talking, and I began typing this out. You know, I’ve been keeping up with this blog more than I had expected; my previous attempts at blogs were basically complete failures. Oh well. I really enjoy typing this out; it’s fun to talk about my day and put other thoughts out there for others to read. That’s why I like WordPress a lot more than I liked Tumblr (which, incidentally, I didn’t like very much): it allows feedback on my what I type via comments and the like. It’s great. I hope you all enjoy reading these as much as I enjoy typing them; at least, I assume there’s several of you who read this since I’ve gotten 144 profile views since I made this just over a week ago. In fact, if you read this, how about you let me know (if you want) via a comment on here, on Facebook, through a mention on Twitter, any way you’d like. I’m just curious. I know that my Granna  and my Memaw both read it, but they’re the only ones I know of for sure.

 

After mentioning Twitter, I’d like to stress to you all how much I enjoy it. I first made it back in April of 2009 when I first got my iPhone, just because having an iPhone with a Twitter app made it easy to tweet frequently. I started off slowly, but after getting back in contact with Logan Mitchell via Twitter and interacting with him and others, I got to where I tweeted more and more, and now I’m at nearly 6300 tweets. What’s so great about Twitter is that it’s a lot more personal than Facebook is; on FB, I have 440 friends. On Twitter, I follow 97 people and 122 people follow me, but most of those people, both sides, are not really people; I follow CNN Breaking News, a deals site, a couple of various news sites (BTTF.com [Back to the Future news] and Mugglenet [the best Harry Potter fansite]), as well as a couple of Harry Potter-related Twitter accounts that have daily trivia that I enjoy participating in and stuff like that. It’s really cool. With Twitter, I don’t have to be careful with what I say (not that I say anything that I SHOULD be careful about, I’m just making a point) so as not to offend people, and if someone annoying is clogging up my Twitter feed I can unfollow them and there’s no harm done or questioning of friendships; honestly, most people you interact with on Twitter are people you don’t know, and you make friends that way. Based on what you tweet about, people with similar interests can find you and follow your feed. A lot of you may think that Twitter is stupid and may not understand it, but if you give it a try you just might like it; it just takes some getting used to. It’s not about telling people about everything you’re doing all day long; it’s much more than that. You can keep track of news, share an article you’ve been reading, keep up with celebrities via their Twitters, and other stuff like that. It’s a great online experience. I urge you all to at least try it. My Twitter feed is linked below. Be warned: if you follow me, I’d recommend not getting my tweets forwarded to your phone; I tweet a LOT:
@Chadadada

 

I had a mini-conversation with my good friend Regan on her status on Facebook on Internet abbreviations, namely the ones relating to laughter. I had jokingly said that something she had posted had “made me rofl”. Now, I’m a well-educated person, and I am what I like to think of as a gifted writer; that’s not to toot my own horn at all (get it? I’m a horn player!), but instead just stating fact; I’ve always made good grades on papers, whether the content was good or not, simply because I’m good at wording things in a way that makes it sound like I know what I’m talking about. Anyway, the point: I use proper grammar and proper English language when I write, say, or type anything. I feel like it makes you seem stupider when you rely too much on abbreviations on the Internet. Now, I realize that on places like Twitter, where you only have 140 characters to say what you want, you do what you can to make it all fit, calling for bad grammar and spelling liberties. But Facebook? Come on, people, is it too hard to spell things out, and spell them correctly? “lol”, though a term I use often (e.g. “That video made me lol”, “I lol’d pretty hard after reading this”), is a stupid term and one that is used far too often, which is why I stick to some variation of “haha” when I think something is funny. That way, I’m not lying (who ever actually “laughs out loud” every time they post that?), and I don’t look stupid. Also, who ever is literally “rolling on the floor laughing” when they type “rofl”? I don’t understand. Learn2English, people.

 

Anyway, this blog post ended up being a lot longer than expected, though I don’t mind at all. Like I said, I really enjoy this. That’s all for tonight, though; I need to try and get to sleep (despite the excessive nap I had earlier) before my theory final at 7:30 in the morning, with band soon after. Goodnight, everyone.

 

Chad

 

P.S. – I’d like you to still cast your vote in the poll on my last post regarding whether you think “Linus and Lucy” by the Vince Guaraldi Trio is a Christmas song or not: read my argument in my last post, but decide for yourself and cast your vote. Here’s the video and the poll. Make sure you listen before you decide, and ignore the fact that the background is from A Charlie Brown Christmas – my point is that just because it was composed for the Christmas special does not make it a Christmas song, nor does the fact that people associate it with that Christmas special. It was used in all of the subsequent specials as a sort of Peanuts “theme song”, so it’s not solely Christmas. Anyway. Here you go.